Recently I was visiting a place where there was no internet access and I am a junkie. Living without is unbearable and a wee bit disorienting. I can go to the local library but the hours are somewhat limited and the drive is…well, it’s not across the street. I can go to friends’ homes but the timing and distance are a factor as well. My dear friend had a solution: drive around the neighborhood and find a wireless network that is “unsecured.” True to my PNewS tradition, I tried it so you don’t have to, but you won’t believe how fun this is.
First, this is probably safer done in tandem as driving and surfing for ISPs can be as dangerous as say driving and texting, which by the way is still legal in some states. Open the screen that displays available wireless networks and hit the road. I thought at first I had to refresh that screen to see new networks but it ain’t true. If I drive slowly enough (under 5MPH), the laptop picks things up all on its own! So smart!
I located a very strong signal at the home of someone I don’t particularly care for so it’s big fun to take advantage of that. They are generally a bit paranoid so I am not able to linger but yesterday, I picked up 37 msgs as I cruised by. After that, I come home, read delete respond and take another drive later to send. Bear loves the car so he’s really happy to come along and I drive a Prius so the gas mileage is low. (We don’t go far.)
Last night I was going out to dinner with friends and I was needing an internet fix so I piled up stuff on the passenger seat and kept the laptop open. When I hit the friends’ neighborhood it was like a celebration—there are so darn many networks it’s crazy! The whole screen filled with them. And many of them are named which is another source of entertainment. (Like with passwords, dog names are popular.) As I was driving home after, I passed another neighborhood and was tempted to cruise through and see what the options were but thought I might be going overboard, and it was DARK. The bright light of the computer made me look a little suspicious. At one point, a car came up behind me and followed close behind. I felt so guilty and meekly drove on home. Turns out it was just another one of those “lookie-lous” who drive neighborhoods even at night.
I am keeping my computing to the daylight hours, but not too bright daylight as the reflection can be tough to handle, and to streets that allow for 5MPH or less,. Good cheap entertainment in a not so good cheap world.
2 comments:
Did you paint a Jolly Roger on the side of the car? Gar! Whar be the signal?
Folks, do batten down the hatches on your wi-fi routers. First, log into the router and change the default password (which may be blank).
Then, either turn on the security features (you'll have to do the same on your computers, and other devices with the proper "key"), or use MAC address filtering, if available. The encryption used with the security systems (like WEP) results in slower performance. MAC address filtering means that you must load the unique hardware network address of each device that you want to allow on your network.
So PNewL will be locked out of your system if she drives by! Gar!
Stop stop stop!
Don't turn off your WEP security in favor of "Mac address filtering"! It is fairly strait-forward for a hacker to ID traffic from one of your favored clients and spoof his way into your network pretending to be it.
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